[MarkMc]

Does this suggest that humans can be put into 'hibernation' to extend their lifespan? (Edit: I mean would be possible in future if we had a better understanding of the process?)

If I was rich enough I'd host a competition to extend the life of rats: Each year, whoever could demonstrate a technique to reliably extend the lifespan of a rat by at least 10% over the previous year's record would win a million dollars. I expect that the wining entry would involve putting the rats into controlled hypothermia.

Over the years the maximum lifespan will grow and we may even find that we can put rats into hibernation indefinitely. It would then be a question of whether we can apply the same techniques to humans.

[zozbot234]

> If I was rich enough I'd host a competition to extend the life of rats: Each year, whoever could demonstrate a technique to reliably extend the lifespan of a rat by at least 10% over the previous year's record would win a million dollars.

Something quite close to this is being done for mice. The Methuselah Foundation awards cash prizes for (1) 'the longest-living mouse' and (2) the longest-living 'rejuvenated' mouse, i.e. you have to design a treatment that works for 'old' mice, extending their life as much as possible.

[MarkMc]

Interesting - thanks. But it seems to be focused on active lifespan so maybe they would view hybernation as cheating.

Here's an article about Aubrey de Grey, the guy behind the Methuselah Foundation award: https://thenextweb.com/contributors/2018/09/19/aubrey-de-gre...

[jacquesm]

It mostly suggests that one person got very lucky and that there are likely important details that made the difference between 'dead' and 'mostly dead'.

Hypothermia due to a low environmental temperature has already been flagged as the way to come out of various otherwise fatal situations in more or less one piece. Besides that, even if no pulse can be detected that doesn't mean there isn't a pulse, and that can make all the difference just by itself.

[MarkMc]

Sure, but given enough effort perhaps we can figure out what the important details are that make the difference between 'dead' and 'mostly dead'?

[jacquesm]

There are no secrets here:

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-11389464

Just the fantasy of the life-extenders that if they figure out this one weird thing they will live forever. The body can be temporarily suspended, depending on the complexity of the creature this can be a very long time, frogs for instance can do it for weeks or even months.

https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-alaskan...

The big differentiator is whether or not the water in the cells has crystallized or not, if it does it will rupture the cells and then it is game over no matter what. Other than that it is mostly a roulette game with very high stakes.

There are lots of papers on frost damage to cells, too many to list here but easily searchable.

[Teandw]

"Does this suggest that humans can be put into 'hibernation' to extend their lifespan?"

Basically, no. Not that we know of yet anyway. This is more of a 'stars aligning' story and her being lucky not to have the bad side effects of her situation. The bad side effects happen more times than not in this sort of thing. Death or brain damage.

[lawlessone]

> demonstrate a technique to reliably extend the lifespan of a rat by at least 10%

you'd get more from calorie restriction.

[pbhjpbhj]

Surely calorie restrictions been done with rats, so you're going to need a novel 10% improvement.